Immediate Family

About Helena Gottdenker

Norbert Gottdenker had been a soldier in the Austrian army in the Great War, as it was called, and had been captured by the Russians. Helena was from the border town of Podwolochisk, and was among those who volunteered to be allowed to look after fellow Jews who were ill or injured; that is how they met.

Her mother relied on her husband’s pension and raised Irene and her brother, Karol, with help from her sister, Dora Iger Kitzay, whom I recall as Tanta Dora

Helena was caught in the dragnet and into a school building; the Nazis and their quislings set attack dogs on them who mauled the people inside. She was saved by a Ukrainian friend who risked his life to enter the building and pull her out ( there were among the Poles and Ukrainians Righteous Gentiles who saved Jewish lives). Some 4000 Jews were killed in pogroms at this time and 2000 more shortly thereafter.

Her mother was again caught and sent into the Janowska labor camp. Helena was executed by machine gunning in a mass killing at the Piaski ( sandy hills) outside Lwow; she was made to fall into her own grave. (This was reported to my mother by connections she had with people in the underground.)